Firefox OS Flame reference device now shipping to developers

The Flame, Mozilla's Firefox OS reference device, is in the process of being shipped out to developers. That group includes Mozillians (individuals or groups that were involved in the Mozilla Project) or developers that bought the device when it went up for pre-orders in May. The handset comes with an unlocked bootloader and is also carrier unlocked.

The Flame is equipped with a 4.5 inch screen with resolution of 480 x 854. Under the hood is a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 200. You can adjust RAM from 256MB to 1GB, and there is 8GB of native storage that can be expanded, thanks to the 32GB microSD slot. The Dual SIM handset features a 5MP camera on back and a 2MP snapper on front. An 1800mAh battery keeps the lights on. There is Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and NFC connectivity.

The reference device helps developers test out their handiwork on the Firefox OS, to make sure the apps they write will work on the OS. The device can be ordered online for $170.

I think its dumb to go down to 256mb of ram nowadays. No one will buy one with just that amount of ram. So why even try to setup your device to make it look like it only has 256mb of ram. If they would have went with a SD 400 quad core CPU, then I would have bought one. But as it stands a 854x480 display with only a dual core SD 200 CPU for 170 is not worth it. Especially when you can get a 1280x720 gorilla glass 3 display in a Moto G with a quad core CPU and 1gb of ram for less money.
Firefox if you want people to buy your hardware. Then do not make so much off the actual devices themselves. Look if Boost Mobile can sell a $59 Moto G off contract, then you guys should be dropping the price of your phones considerably.

That sounds like a great idea for developers. If I developed more software for a platform, it would be nice to know what kind of performance I can expect from my app at various levels of RAM, so that I can try to optimize my apps to perform well for a specific amount of RAM.

I wonder which platform will actually take off in the low end - Tizen, or Firefox OS? Seeing what they are doing for developers in the world of Firefox makes me hopeful that Firefox can compete with or exceed Tizen... especially if Samsung continues to waffle on releasing Tizen in the first place.

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